What the hell. All the other cool kids are doing it:

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Plus my picture is much more evil looking.

Justin Crawford of HOP Studios has created a new anti-comment spam module combo for ExpressionEngine that makes use of the Defensio service and we’re giving it a go here at SEB. It’s similar to Akismet in most respects, but gives a little more control over how comments are handled. So for the moment I’ve disabled Akismet and enabled Defensio and we’ll see how it goes. We get a fair amount of comment spam here so it shouldn’t be too long before we know if it works better or worse than Akismet.

As always, let me know if anything looks wonky or doesn’t work.

Hey Ridge, your Freudian Slip is showing:

OK, this doesn’t really prove anything, but it is damned amusing.

John McCain was in Concord, NH on Tuesday apparently doing an Q&A at a high school. During that Q&A a student by the name of William Sleaster challenged McCain on his stance on gay rights. McCain first tried to dodge the question, but the plucky student wouldn’t have it:

Sleaster pressed on. “Do you support civil unions or gay marriage?”

“I do not,” McCain answered. “I think that they impinge on the status and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.”

“So you believe in taking away someone’s rights because you believe it’s wrong?”

“I wouldn’t put that interpretation on my position, but I understand yours,” McCain said diplomatically.

Sleaster went on to ask another question about how to help the working class in America, which McCain fielded by talking about the country’s need to figure out education and health care, and to secure the environment.

Sleaster indicated that he wanted to follow up again.

“You have one more? Go ahead you’re doing good,” McCain encouraged.

“I came here looking to see a leader,” Sleaster said. “I don’t.”

To his credit McCain kept his temper in check and told the kid “I understand. I thank you. That’s what America is all about.”

Perhaps some might see Sleaster’s response as rude, but it was honest and probably something McCain should hear more often. If nothing else it’s good to see at least one member of the next generation taking a stand.

In an apparent attempt to dissuade the few remaining people willing to travel on their airline the folks at Continental have introduced a $15 charge for your first checked bag:

The fee applies immediately to tickets bought for destinations in the United States and to flights between the United States and Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada for travel starting on or after October 7.

Continental said the fee will not apply to its “EliteAccess” customers, travelers on full-fare economy tickets, or to military personnel and their families on official orders.

That’s in addition to a $25 fee for a second checked bag. Soon they’ll have a $30 oxygen fee and you’ll have to fly naked or face another $25 fee. Fuck Continental Airlines. I’ll fucking walk.

Once again, Jon Stewart nails it:

Oh, and big time bonus points to Samantha Bee for this segment:

At one point Tuesday night during the Republican convention they had a video featuring 15-year-old Victoria Blackstone reading an essay she wrote about the Pledge of Allegiance. It featured all sorts of patriotic imagery and the young woman talking about how, when she recites the pledge, she’s there with the Founding Fathers and she signs the Declaration of Independence and she’s with the slaves as they’re running for freedom and she’s marching with Martin Luther King and helping dig out the bodies at ground zero and with her cousin as he fights over in Iraq. Well, here, see for yourself:

Have you ever heard a bigger bunch of saccharine soaked sentiment? The point she appears to be trying to make is that she feels “united” in spirit with all those other people who, you know, actually did something patriotic without all the fuss of actually doing something patriotic beyond writing an essay full of platitudes. Needless to say, the Republicans just ate that shit up. It’s a pretty shallow attempt at defending the Pledge of Allegiance as this great ritual that gives kids a sense of “being a part of history” or some such nonsense ignoring the fact that, since the inclusion of the words “under God” in 1954, the Pledge is a divisive rather than inclusive patriotic ritual.

Now I’ll cut Victoria some slack because she’s 15 and hasn’t had a lot of time to actually go out and do patriotic stuff as opposed to just talking about it, but the poem seems so perfectly representative of how the Republicans like to talk about patriotism without actually doing anything that I couldn’t let it pass without comment. For example, for all the talk about “supporting our troops” the Republicans in general, and President Bush in particular, have done a pretty piss-poor job of actually doing something to support them. Like make sure they actually have all the body armor and equipment they needed to do the job they were sent overseas to do. Or to ensure that the veterans hospitals are funded well enough to not only provided the needed care to the wounded soldiers, but so that the buildings themselves didn’t literally fall down around them or make them even sicker because they were infected with mold. The Republicans don’t want to improve the G.I. Bill so that it actually provides soldiers with a decent college education because then they might decide not to re-enlist in the service. They also don’t want too many soldiers to be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because then they’d actually feel responsible for having to help them in some way so they order them dishonorably discharged for “behavior problems” thus not only preventing costly mental health payments, but also stripping them of any other benefits they might have had coming to them.

But, boy, they sure do love to talk about how much they support the troops, eh?

I’m sorry, but patriotism to me is something you do, not something you stand around talking about while swelling your chest with a false sense of pride over accomplishments you personally had nothing to do with. Whether it’s something as simple as fulfilling your civic duty by taking time off for jury duty or actually being one of the people helping out at a disaster scene such as ground zero. And, no, the action of slapping a flag on your bumper doesn’t really count.

This was all brought about by this CBS news article about how the soldiers that show up in that video clip were just actors. I guess some folks think that’s a problem:

A veteran’s advocate said that with soldiers still deployed and in harm’s way, there is an obligation not to sugar coat reality.

“What it does reveal is a serious lack of understanding and a lack of personal connection to the military,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Rieckhoff, who is at the convention with a contingent of veterans added that a video tribute to Medal of Honor Winner Michael Monsoor, a Navy Seal killed in Iraq, shown on Tuesday night, used combat video that appeared to him and several other veterans of the Iraq war to have been staged.

Staged or real, I don’t see what difference it makes. The poem itself is what they should be annoyed with, not the fact that they dressed some actors up and told them to act all patriotic and stuff. At least that’s the way I see it.

Found via ***Dave.

So says the nutcase who wrote the following editorial:

Butch Dallmann, Moorhead, Letter: All answers can be found in the Bible

Published Thursday, September 04, 2008

Well, folks, here we go again.
First they try to make us believe in the “big-bang” theory; then the “millions of years” theory; then the “we all came from monkeys” theory or even the “sea” theory.

Let’s get into the real solution as to what happened and read the Bible. Genesis will explain how it all was created.

Now for the global warming story Al Gore and others are pushing on us; it’s time to read Genesis to Revelation in the Bible.

When God sent the rain on this Earth for 40 days and nights, all this water had to go someplace so the Earth would be dry again.

Remember, God is the Creator and controls the universe.

God tilted the Earth from its original position and caused all the excess water to rush to the poles, and there he instantly froze the water into the ice formations that exist today.

Time is ticking down on God’s time clock. With all the nuclear bombs that are made and stored for the fast-emerging last battle, this Earth would burn up when these nuclear bombs are set off.

We are not creating global warming – God is tipping the Earth back to its original position on its axis and thus getting all this ice to get ready to move and extinguish the nuclear destructive fires man will create.

Time is running out, folks. Jesus is coming soon. Do you know him as your personal Savior?

Well that explains everything. How foolish of me to think it could have possibly been anything man might have done. God tilting the Earth is a much more likely possibility than man releasing millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Ow! I think I sprained my sarcasm muscle.

Remember folks, that guy can vote.

Found at Diatomaceous Earth via Pharyngula.

There’s nothing like reviewing a few video clips to show everyone just how hypocritical the Republicans really are:

They remind me of those neighborhood kids you played with when you were kids that were always changing the rules of the game to their advantage, but if you tried to do the same then you were a cheater.

As is illustrated in the following McCain campaign photo:

Yeah, that’s just all kinds of wrong.

Found over at Neurotopia.

It’s no secret that the Religious Right wasn’t overly thrilled with John McCain winning the nomination, but it’s also clear that they absolutely adore his “choice” for VP. I put the word choice in quotes because there’s some indication the decision was more or less forced on him by the Fundies as McCain reportedly wanted to go with either Tom Ridge or Joe Liberman. It’s easy to understand their enthusiasm for her as she is clearly one of them based on her stance on just about every issue. Still she’s only the VP so one has to wonder why they’d be so excited about it and the obvious conclusion is that they’re hoping John McCain will kick the bucket early into his term leaving her to take over as President.

Now that’s a pretty cynical line of thought, but it turns out to be not only accurate, but also an understatement. Some Christian Reconstructionists out there aren’t going to leave it to chance. No, they’re calling on folks to not only pray that McCain/Palin win, but that God strike McCain down after he’s elected:

Antiabortion militant and all-round theocratic activist Jay Rogers of Florida, whose blog is called The Forerunner, writes:

Pray for John McCain’s salvation and speedy death. (Google The Forerunner’s articles on Imprecatory Prayer if you think this is harsh.)

And then there is this guy, a self-described Christian Reconstructionist whose blog handle is Ixion, and is apparently from Tennessee:

McCain’s VP choice, Sarah Palin, suddenly made me want to vote for him, as long as the LORD smites him while he’s in office. She’s consistently conservative on all the issues, and if she’s good enough for The Forerunner, she’s good enough for me. The Forerunner agrees with me that McCain must be smitten, as well, so I’m obviously not alone in my viewpoints.

After a long response to a well-researched Daily Kos diary by Dogemperor, discussing Palin’s religious history and raises some important concerns, Ixion comes back around to his main point.

May the LORD cause McCain/Palin to win the White House in 2008, and then smite the godless McCain in favor of Palin. Amen.

That’s gotta make McCain feel all warm and fuzzy about all that Religious Right ass he’s been kissing for the past year. Here he is violating just about every principle he’s ever held so he can get these people to vote for him and what’s the thanks he gets? A bunch of yahoos trying to use Imprecatory Prayer against him. I suppose he can take some comfort knowing that study after study shows prayer doesn’t accomplish jack shit, but it’s gotta sting to know there are people wishing you’ll die so the person they really want to see as President can take over.

The truly scary part is they might get their wish if he is elected. He’s not exactly a spring chicken after all. If you think the past eight years have been bad then you just wait until President Palin is in power. She makes Bush look almost mainstream.

Hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars for the link.

I gotta give credit to the guys behind the Penny Arcade webcomic. Not only do they have one of the most popular gamer oriented webcomics around, but they’ve lived every geek’s dream by starting their own gaming convention known as the “Penny Arcade Expo” or PAX for short. It’s only been around for a few years, but it’s grown year by year hitting a record of 58,000 attendees this year. Hardware and software companies make it a point to attend and show off their latest wares to the hardest of the hard core gamers. Even going so far as to drop out of other industry sponsored events, such as E3, in order to focus on this one. Journalists refer to it as the “Geek Burning Man Event” because they’re not really sure how else to describe it. It’s exactly the sort of convention I dreamed of when I was a teenager myself.

One of these days I’d like to make it out to a PAX, but that wasn’t possible this year so I have to live it vicariously through press coverage and one of the better articles I’ve read in terms of giving you a feel for what it was like is this one at ArsTechnica. Here’s a snip from Bioshock creator Ken Levine’s keynote address:

Instead of talking about his latest game, he talks about growing up young and nerdy, of being ashamed of his enthusiasm for comic books and games like Dungeons and Dragons. He talks about how the issues dealt with in favorite comics like Spiderman may have made him feel more grown-up than his peers, while noting that he was mocked for his choice of reading material.

He describes his first Dungeons and Dragons source book, read under the sheets in the dead of night, as if it was pornography that he was afraid to be caught with. He describes how the gift of an Atari system one Hanukkah changed his life. “This was my Nerd Siberia,” he tells the packed auditorium, as they nod in understanding. No friends. Picked on at school. Ashamed of a growing comic book collection.

He shows a picture of Farrah Fawcett. “Believe me, this was the shit back in the ‘70s,” he says, before changing the slide to a scantily clad illustration. “Me? I wanted to fuck the Scarlet Witch.” The room erupts.

[...] “After many years running from things I love, it’s amazing to come here and see what Gabe and Tycho and so many others have built together,” he said. “We are united by a common element, but it’s not the color of our skin or our ideology or politics,” he went on, his voice rising. “What brings us together at PAX is that we are a giant bunch of fucking nerds.” The kids sitting to the right of me, wearing Magic: The Gathering shirts and suffering through what looked like hard bouts of acne, almost bowl me over as they rush to stand up, applaud, and cheer. I believe one of them is crying. 

I’m welling up just thinking about it. These are my people.

It’s amazing to me to think of how this wouldn’t have been at all possible without the rise of the Internet. I was lucky as a geeky teenager in that growing up in Pontiac Michigan the schools were large enough that finding other geeks to befriend wasn’t that difficult. It also helped that I decided to run a Bulletin Board System (BBS) on my Commodore 64 starting in early 1981, which pretty much guaranteed I’d hook up with other geeks. By the end of my freshmen year of high school I was fortunate to have a core group of good friends who were into many of the same things I was: video games, computers, Dungeons & Dragons (and a dozen other RPGs), and Sci-Fi/Fantasy books and movies. We spent countless hours hanging out between school and work playing marathon sessions - upwards of 12 to 15 hours at a time on weekends - of video games or pen and paper RPGs. We managed to find our way onto the Internet thanks to some of us going off to college long before it went mainstream in 1996. I can only imagine what trying to access the Net today on a Commodore 64 with a 300 baud modem would be like. There was no World Wide Web back then and we had no idea of the revolution that was to come, but we glimpsed the potential in how it enabled us to contact other geeks from all over the world.

Had you asked me then if I could foresee a day when a couple of geeks would achieve a massive following for a comic strip they gave away for free that would start their own gaming convention that would attract tens of thousands of geeks yearly along with a charity that would raise tons of money for children’s hospitals (they also started Child’s Play which raised 1.3 million dollars last year) I’d have probably laughed at the thought that there were enough geeks in the world to make something like that possible. Behold the Power of the Internet!

I suppose this is a very long-winded way of saying just how much I envy the geeks of today. We would’ve given our left nut for a convention like PAX back in my youth. OK maybe not our left nut, but certainly a leg or a foot. Not an arm though cause we’d need that to work the joysticks.

That’s the question this analysis by AP writer Ted Anthony poses:

The Republican message about the Palin offspring comes across as contradictory: Hey, media, leave those kids alone — so we can use them as we see fit.

If you doubt this scenario, consider this: On Wednesday morning, a teenage boy from Alaska stood in a receiving line on an airport tarmac, being glad-handed by the potential next president of the United States — because he got his girlfriend pregnant. TV cameras were lined up in advance. The mind boggles.

“Either the children are out of bounds, and you don’t put them in the photo ops, or you don’t complain when somebody wants to talk about them. You can’t have it both ways,” said John Matviko, a professor at West Liberty State College in West Virginia and editor of “The American President in Popular Culture.”

“Right now, it looks like they’re being used by the campaign more than the media are using them,” he said.

[...] Using one’s relatives as accessories in the political arena can have its pitfalls, despite McCain’s remark to ABC News on Wednesday that Palin has “got an incredible resume, including a beautiful family.” Candidates open themselves to charges of hypocrisy if they demand the ability to boast but reject the attention that can ensue when the road gets rougher.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, however, takes issue with that conclusion. He says both positions are possible.

“There’s a long-standing precedent of children of the candidates being in the public eye as members of families involved in public service,” Bounds said Wednesday night. “There is also a long-standing precedent of candidates’ children being left out of the hardball politics of campaigning for higher office.”

That’s pretty typical hypocrisy for the Republicans. Especially when one of the things they’re pushing about Palin is her supposed status as a “soccer mom” who is big on “family values.” In all fairness it’s not as though Obama hasn’t put his kids up on stage or in front of the camera with him, but then neither one of them is representative of a failed policy stance that Obama promotes either.

Maybe I’m stupid (duh, it says so right in my blog name), but it seems to me that if you don’t want people using your pregnant minor child and her “I’m a fuckin’ redneck” boyfriend as a political football then perhaps it would be wise not to do so yourself. But that’s just me.

According to their Terms and Conditions page this link is unauthorized:

ALFRED DUNHILL does not authorise linking to its Web Site from a third party web site without its prior written authorisation.

Apparently these asshats are some sort of overpriced London-based retailer of mostly mens clothing that is run by idiots who think they can control who’s allowed to link to their website.  Perhaps this is just a clever way to get folks to link to them out of spite and if it is then it worked. Just the same it earns them a great big “fuck you”, with love, from me.

It seems there’s never enough time or money to play every great game that is released. There’s plenty of titles that have sat on my Amazon Wish List until they were no longer available so I never got around to playing them. If you’re like me and prefer to buy your games rather than just download them off of Bittorrent then you may be interested in a new service called Good Old Games. They make available the best games of the past at affordable prices and, best of all, NO DRM. From their website:

1. We’ve got games your 10-year-old won’t be better at.

GOG.com offers you critically acclaimed games from major publishers in every genre. Don’t let your kids mock the graphics; remind them that the classics never go out of style, unlike their totally wicked haircut.

2. So you’re cheap. It’s okay – we are, too.

We sell games for $5.99 and $9.99. For less than the cost of a lunch at some lousy diner you can own some of the greatest games of all time. No matter how big the file is and how successful the game was, you’ll leave the table satisfied that you got a great deal for your money. As an added bonus, our house specialities won’t make you sick.

3. You buy it, you keep it.

Don’t let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, eh?). You won’t find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don’t just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and even re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.

4. All games are Vista and XP compatible.

Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible. Now you can use your lightning-fast PC to unleash the full potential of those games you just couldn’t play properly on that busted old 386.

5. Extend the experience with tons of cool and exclusive add-ons.

Buying the game is just the beginning. With a purchase of any game at GOG.com you’ll also get some great additional materials for free, including game guides, walkthroughs, wallpapers and more. No joke.

6. We’re bringing together classic games and a classy community.

Dive into the GOG.com community, share your love for the games and meet other gamers with the same passion for the Good Old Games as you. Rate and review every single game, discuss your favorite titles on message boards, get support for your games and help others. Who knows, maybe you’ll find that special someone.

7. It’s so easy, your gramma’s probably already playing.

GOG.com is so easy to use. Just a few clicks will get you on your way to playing some of the best PC games of all time.

• easy account setup
• simple, fast and hassle-free downloads
• game installers as user-friendly as can be
• DRM-free games make it easy to re-download, install on any computer or even back them up on a CD.

Early Access Beta is Coming! Beware.

On Monday, September 8, anyone who signed up for the GOG.com beta will start receiving access keys to the site. We’re saying goodbye to the press beta and gearing up for the next phase: Early Access Beta. Everyone who signs up at http://www.gog.com before Sunday September 7 at midnight (EDT), during the next week will receive an access key, which will allow them to dive into the GOG.com site. If you don’t receive your access key on Monday, don’t worry as we’re sending them out in stages. The Early Access Beta will offer all the main features of the site, including buying DRM-free games, joining the community and writing reviews. Apart from just getting access, everyone buys a game from GOG.com during the Early Access Beta will receive a bonus code to get one game from GOG.com’s Interplay catalogue for free! So what are you waiting for? If you haven’t signed up yet, be sure to enter your email address and get in on the action.

Yep, I’m basically giving them some free advertising, but I think it’s a cool idea and I’m hoping it’s a success. I’ve never gotten around to playing the original two Fallout games and I keep hearing about how awesome they are so this is a chance to go back and try them out. They had a short interview with Shacknews on what they’re shooting for:

Shack:  If there’s isn’t any copy protection, aren’t you concerned about piracy? How do you ensure this will be a profitable and long-lasting enterprise?

Tom Ohle: Realistically, it’s probably out of our hands. What we wanted to do is kind of, provide that unique value in terms of--it’s something that other competitors don’t offer. Separate just from the games catalog itself, every other digital distribution platform basically requires some kind of online authentication, some sort of copy protection in there.

For us, it’s basically log into your account and download any game [you’ve bought], any time. The concern about piracy is something that we’ve gotten from publishers, who kinda go, “We’ll give you these games, you sell them, and then they’ll just be out on torrents immediately.”

We’re hoping that with the low price point--we’re also adding a bunch of added value features. For some of the key games, we’re gonna have really in-depth game guides. And just trying to have that low price point, plus the no DRM, sort of working on a bit of an honor system.

The gamers that we’re targeting are going to end up being a more mature audience anyways, because they’re these hardcore, old-school PC gamers. For $5.99 or $9.99, it’s pretty cheap. Hopefully people won’t be too tempted to copy it and give it to their buddies, because it’s pretty cheap. And hopefully the more sales we get, obviously, the more likely we are to bring on additional publishers and different titles. If everyone’s pirating games right off the bat, then I guess we’d be in a bit of trouble.

It’s likely they’d be pirated even if they had DRM on them (Spore comes to mind), but with the price being so low and the titles being older perhaps it’ll be less of a temptation. Either way it sounds like a good opportunity to catch up on titles you’ve missed along the way.